“Well?” Father had a stern way with servants. When I’m head of the family I’ll tread them under my feet. That’s the way to get real devotion from servants!
“If you please, sir, I took the young gentleman into my room and ordered a nice breakfast for him, for I could see he was half famished—a growing boy like him, and so tall! Presently it came along. It was a good breakfast, too! The very smell of it made even me hungry. There were eggs and frizzled ham, and grilled kidneys, and coffee, and buttered toast, and bloater-paste—”
“That will do as to the menu,” said mother. “Go on!”
“When it was all ready, and the maid had gone, I put a chair to the table and said, ‘Now, sir, your breakfast is ready!’ He stood up and said, ‘Thank you, madam; you are very kind!’ and he bowed to me quite nicely, just as if I was a lady, ma’am!”
“Go on,” said mother.
“Then, sir, he held out his hand and said, ‘Good-bye, and thank you,’ and he took up his cap.
“‘But aren’t you going to have any breakfast, sir?’ I says.
“‘No, thank you, madam,’ he said; ‘I couldn’t eat here . . . in this house, I mean!’ Well, ma’am, he looked so lonely that I felt my heart melting, and I ventured to ask him if there was any mortal thing I could do for him. ‘Do tell me, dear,’ I ventured to say. ‘I am an old woman, and you, sir, are only a boy, though it’s a fine man you will be—like your dear, splendid father, which I remember so well, and gentle like your poor dear mother.’
“‘You’re a dear!’ he says; and with that I took up his hand and kissed it, for I remember his poor dear mother so well, that was dead only a year. Well, with that he turned his head away, and when I took him by the shoulders and turned him round—he is only a young boy, ma’am, for all he is so big—I saw that the tears were rolling down his cheeks. With that I laid his head on my breast—I’ve had children of my own, ma’am, as you know, though they’re all gone. He came willing enough, and sobbed for a little bit. Then he straightened himself up, and I stood respectfully beside him.
“‘Tell Mr. Melton,’ he said, ‘that I shall not trouble him about the trustee business.’